Blame it on those impish enviros, always eager to mock their opponents in as few words as possible on 36-by-48-inch protest signs. “No Fracking Way,” “Frack Off,” “Don’t Frack Our Future,” and “Stop Fracking Mother Earth” are just a few of the ways shale-oil opponents have happily turned the emotionally neutral term “hydraulic fracturing” into a dirty word.

It’s clever framing – put “fracking” on the list with “death tax” and “job creator” –- but environmentalists didn’t need to hire a political wordslinger to concoct a winningly charged term. Merriam-Webster traces industry use of the term “fracking” back to 1953.

Image by iStock/Joe_Potato.

Reed McManus is a senior editor at Sierra. He has worked on the magazine since Ronald Reagan’s second term. For inspiration, he turns to cartoonist R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural, who famously noted: “Twas ever thus.”

While Stanford is obligated to maximize the financial return of its investments, natch, its Statement on Investment Responsibility, adopted in 1971, states that if the university’s trustees conclude that a company’s “corporate policies or practices create substantial social injury,” they may factor it into their decisions. "Stanford has a responsibility as a global citizen to promote sustainability for our planet,” said Stanford President John Hennessy. "The university's review has concluded that coal is one of the most carbon-intensive methods of energy generation and that other sources can be readily substituted for it. Moving away from coal in the investment context is a small, but constructive, step while work continues, at Stanford and elsewhere, to develop broadly viable sustainable energy solutions for the future."

Much credit for the move goes to Stanford’s Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing, composed of students, faculty, and staff, which conducted an extensive review of the impacts of fossil-fuel investments and recommended the changes to the Board of Trustees. The student group Fossil Free Stanford got the ball rolling last year when it petitioned the university to divest from 200 fossil fuel extraction companies. In a recent student referendum, 78 percent of students voted in support of divesting from fossil fuels. The group continues to push the university to divest from all fossil fuels, not just coal. (So far, Stanford is holding on to its oil and gas investments.)

Reed McManus is a senior editor at Sierra. He has worked on the magazine since Ronald Reagan’s second term. For inspiration, he turns to cartoonist R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural, who famously noted: “Twas ever thus.”

May 08, 2014

The serac avalanche that killed 16 men last month on Everest was the largest, single-event, loss of life in Everest’s history and it has sparked political mobilization among the Sherpa people. Anger and sadness have reverberated throughout the climbing community across two continents and resulted in a massive fundraising campaign by Outside magazine Senior Editor Grayson Schaffer and National Geographic photographer Aaron Huey.

They raised $425,000 in just eight days.

Schaffer and Huey recruited a group of 10 climbing photographers to sell $100 prints of Everest that have been published in National Geographic and Outside. The flash sale was so successful that they have reopened the sale until midnight Sunday, May 11. Click Here to see the prints for sale and/or make a donation.

The climbing center has become an important part of Sherpa guide training, which recognizes that guiding is lucrative but dangerous work for mountain communities. A certificate from KCC has become a sort of union card for guides. The school employs over 17 Nepali instructors, one of whom Ang Kaji Sherpa, died in the April 18 avalanche. A number of other victims also attended KCC, notes Jennifer Lowe-Anker, co-founder of the ACLF.

When word of the death toll reached Huey, he and Schaffer spent three sleepless days pulling together photographers and assembling the website. “The question was not do I do this, but how do I do this,” said Cory Richards, accomplished mountaineer and NatGeo photographer. “Photos made it more than just an ask, it made it an offer,” says Huey. Instead of throwing money into a fund, donors get a striking piece of art that represents a community that needs support.

Some of the most well-known names in alpine photography have lent their wares to this sale, including Richards who has been to Nepal over a dozen times and worked closely with Ang Kaji at the climbing center. Richards was also on the 2012 NatGeo Everest expedition and passed under this serac several times, commenting, “There’s a reason Conrad [Anker] calls the icefall the ‘ballroom of death’.”

Huey said he would like to see changes made on Everest to provide more safety for native guides. Barring removal of all commercial guiding expeditions, he thinks “better pay, better insurance, and better education,“ are the best ways to support them.

Richards sees this fund as a way to show their friends that “their value cannot be equated the value of the Everest industry,” which yields the government over $3.3 million a year in permits alone. “It’s time to get organized and get political,” he said.

And that they have.

When the Nepali government offered families of deceased climbers about USD$400 for funeral expenses the Sherpas remaining at base camp went on strike. Their demands included an increase in the amount paid to families of the deceased to $1,000, a $10,000 payment to severely injured staff unable to return to work, 30 percent of royalties collected by the government from all western permits to create a relief fund, double the amount of insurance to mountaineering workers, a guaranteed salary for the rest of this season even if they choose not to continue working, and a memorial park to honor the deceased in Kathmandu.

In late April the Nepali government agreed to meet a majority of these demands.

May 06, 2014

Cliven Bundy talks a big game, but he's nothing new. Bundy, of course, is the racist Nevada rancher whose refusal to pay $1 million in fees and fines for illegally grazing his cattle on public land protected for the threatened desert tortoise led to an armed standoff with federal agents. The BLM withdrew after being confronted by hundreds of Bundy supporters, many of them armed. " 'The gather is now over,' said Craig Leff, a deputy assistant director with the Bureau of Land Management. 'Our focus is pursuing this matter administratively and judicially.' "

Sierra Club founder John Muir had a different view of dealing with those grazing their animals illegally on public land. In a speech printed in the January, 1896 Sierra Club Bulletin, Muir welcomed the arrival of U.S troops to put a stop to illegal sheep grazing in the brand new Yosemite National Park.

Blessings on Uncle Sam's blue-coats! In what we may call homeopathic doses, the quiet, orderly soldiers have done this fine job, without any apparent friction or weak noise, in the still, calm way that United States troops do their duty. Uncle Sam has only to say "There is you duty," and it is done. . . .

Nine Portuguese shepherds and eighteen shepherd dogs were marched across the park from the extreme northern boundary, across the Tuolumne Cañon and the rugged topography of the Merced basin to the southern boundary at Wawona, and were presented as prisoners before Captain Rodgers, who had charge of the troop guarding the park.

These shepherds submitted to being driven along over hill and dale as peacefully as sheep, notwithstanding they had a little previously been boasting of their fighting qualities and the surprising excellence of their guns, and with what deadly effect they would use them if interfered with in their divine right of stealing pasturage. But when they were calmly confronted by a soldier, armed with the authority of the United States and a gun of much surer fire than theirs, they always behaved well, and became suddenly unbelligerent.

PAUL RAUBER is a senior editor at Sierra. He is the author, with Carl Pope, of the happily outdated Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress. Otherwise he is a cyclist, cook, and dad. Follow him on Twitter @paulrauber

Scheduled to be implemented in July, the scheme will charge electric cars nothing to park, hybrid cars 20 percent less than average, and diesel cars made in 2001 and earlier 20 percent more. (Spurred by tax incentives not seen in the U.S., diesel vehicles account for 70 percent of new cars sold in France and Spain. While diesels post admirable mpg figures, which reduces their greenhouse gas emissions compared to gasoline-powered cars, the story isn’t so cheery when it comes to their emissions of smog-forming pollutants such as nitrogen oxides. Older diesel vehicles are particularly noxious.) Madrid’s pricing will also vary depending on how congested a street is at any time of the day.

According to the Guardian, Madrid “continually exceeds the EU limit for nitrogen dioxide in the air – mainly released through car exhaust systems – with rates that have at times spiked five times above the limit deemed safe by the EU.”

It’s unclear how Madrid’s smart parking meters will identify a specific vehicle, whether using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology such as that used for electronic toll-collection systems, or by requiring a driver to punch in their license-plate number, but that’s not much of a hurdle with today’s smart parking meters. Already, San Francisco uses “demand responsive pricing” to raise and lower on-street parking fees based on congestion. And London has charged “congestion fees” for driving in central London on weekdays for more than a decade using plate-recognition technology.

--Image by iStock/scottyh.

Reed McManus is a senior editor at Sierra. He has worked on the magazine since Ronald Reagan’s second term. For inspiration, he turns to cartoonist R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural, who famously noted: “Twas ever thus.”

May 01, 2014

Well, the answer is yes! Bears can rock climb, as seen inthis viral videofilmed by youtuber Stephanie Latimer. These bears aren't quite poetry in motion; they seem too clumsy, shaky and husky to be testing their vertical limits. And since they climb free-solo (meaning without ropes or protection because they are bears), you're left on the very edge of your seat with every reach and paw shuffle.

"These are the best bear climbers I've seen since 1999 in Yosemite when I witnessed the impressive free-solo of a 50-foot 5.9 off-width by a bear....The mom employs some masterful stemming at the crux, while the cub realizes that this is a reach problem and is forced to establish a more difficult variation."

These are Mexican Black Bears, a subspecies of black bear listed asendangeredin Texas, and they grow to weigh 200-400 pounds--not an ideal weight for such miniscule paw holds. Yet somehow the little cub, after watching her mother traverse like a furryAlex Honnoldto the safe ledge, learns quickly. She nervously negotiates the route and tops out in dramatic fashion.

These black bears are often spotted by campers in Santa Elena Canyon, part of the 800,000-acreBig Bend National Parkin the lone star state. Campers and hikers might witness them lumbering around and foraging near the river with their cubs. But seeing these bears crimp, traverse and jug up the canyon walls, claws and all? That's another story.

"Rarely are [black bears] seen scaling the walls of the canyon," says a Park Ranger of Big Bend who prefers anonymity. But, he says, it happens, and it's not as impressive as the video suggests. "The cliffs actually aren't all that vertical," he says, and it's common for bears to climb anything that they perceive is climbable.

Plus, rock climbing in Santa Elena Canyon isn't conducive to human methods of climbing. The canyon rock--soft igneous and limestone flutes--is much less dense than sayYosemite's granite. Drilling and placing climbing protection are risky for the climber and damage the rock's integrity.

Wright (pictured, tall), however, remains awestruck. "After careful examination," says Wright, "I can confidently say that this is a cutting edge ascent that in bear grades is in the upper stratosphere of what is possible. I would guess it is a solid B.15." Wright equates the "B" scale (for "Bear") to the highest-rated climb in human standards, 5.15.

"Even by human standards this is one of the great ascents of our time. A new bar has been set. I think it's time for [Chris] Sharma,Honnoldand [Tommy] Caldwell to hang up their hats and give respect where it's due."

Video credit: Stephanie Latimer

Photo credit: Cedar Wright

J. Scott Donahue is a former intern at Sierra. He will soon obtain an MFA in nonfiction writing, and his thesis is composed of travel essays about trekking, mountaineering and running Nepal's Himalayas.

April 28, 2014

April was the month to observe Mars, but May is for Mercury and Saturn. Mercury is appearing in the west in the early evening, trying to shine through the colors of the sunset. This is the best month of the year to see Mercury, with the end of May giving you your greatest chance to spot it. Mercury is brightest when it is closest to the sun, but it will be hard to see Mercury until after it has risen a bit higher in the sky and dimmed from its peak of brightness. On May 8, both Mercury and Mars shine at magnitude -1.0. Both planets get dimmer after this date, but Mercury dims more quickly. However, it also climbs farther away from the sunset’s glow, which actually makes it easier to see.

Each evening as Mercury has been climbing higher in the sky, Jupiter has been sliding down to meet it. But Mercury starts sinking back toward the horizon on May 25, which means their meeting will be left for another day. On May 30 Mercury shines at magnitude 1.2 and should be easy to spot beside a crescent moon.

Jupiter spends May in Gemini, and the moon passes through its vicinity on May 3 and 4, and then again on May 31, when the moon is a 10-percent-lit crescent. Mars and Saturn are trailing behind Jupiter on the ecliptic. Saturn reaches opposition on May 10 on the same evening that the moon nears Mars, and three days later the moon reaches Saturn just a little shy of full phase. The Full Moon is on May 14 at 12:15 p.m. PDT.

Last month before sunrise it was Neptune that came within two degrees of Venus, but in May it’s Uranus’s turn. On May 15 you can find Uranus less than two degrees to the upper left of Venus. If you want to see Venus and Uranus together in the evening, you’ll have to wait until March 4, 2015, when they will be less than a degree apart.

The Eta Aquarid Meteors peak on May 6 when we pass through an old stream of dust left behind by Halley’s Comet. These fast-moving meteors with long trains are best in the early morning hours of May 6 and may produce up to 70 meteors an hour.

Before sunrise on Saturday May 24, Earth will pass through a debris trail left behind by comet P/ 209 LINEAR, giving us the chance for an outburst of meteors. With a possibility of 400 meteors an hour, it’s worth a peek.

May Observing Highlights: Mercury and Saturn

(Photo: Jupiter and Mercury as seen in 2011. Credit: John Chumack)

Kelly Kizer Whitt loves clean, clear, and dark skies. Kelly studied English and Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked for Astronomymagazine. She writes the SkyGuide for AstronomyToday.com. You can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/Astronomommy.

April 25, 2014

Here’s some good news, China-style. Reports Vice: “Animal carcasses in its waterways, heavy particles in its air, toxic metals in its soil and food supply — these are a few of the things that led China to make waves on Earth Day by submitting proposals to its national legislature that would amend the country’s environmental protection law for the first time in 25 years.” If the proposals are approved by the National People’s Congress, China would increase its Ministry of Environmental Protection’s ability to enforce regulations, polluting companies could be closed, whistleblowers could gain legal protections, and industrial development could be restricted in certain areas. It all follows a declaration in March by Premier Li Keqiang, the second-ranked political leader and head of economic policy, of a “war on pollution” in the world’s biggest carbon-emitting nation.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace has issued a (moderately) optimistic report, “The End of China’s Coal Boom,” which focuses on coal policies announced by the government last fall and the coal pledges by 12 of China’s 34 provinces that have resulted from them. Coal consumption in China has increased at no more than 3 percent per year since 2012, which has a “How is this news?” aspect to it until you consider that 2003 and 2004’s rates were 19.2% and 17.5%, respectively. If China’s new coal programs are fully implemented, Greenpeace says, the slowdown in coal consumption “opens up a window of opportunity for peaking global CO2 emissions. Implementing the coal control measures could put China’s emissions almost in line with a 2-degrees trajectory.” (At the 2010 Copenhagen Accords, world leaders recognized the need to keep the increase in global temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.)

That would be good news for all of us. “China’s coal consumption has become the single most significant determinant for the future of the world’s climate,” reports Greenpeace. “Between 2002 and 2012, CO2 emissions from coal burning in China increased by 4.5 billion [metric tons]. This is equivalent to the European Union’s entire emissions in 2011.”

If so much (tentatively) rosy news makes you a glutton for environmental punishment, you can follow the U.S. Embassy’s hourly Beijing air alerts. Spoiler: They seem to vary between “unhealthy” and “very unhealthy.”

Image of boy in Beijing smog by iStock/Hung_Chung_Chih

Reed McManus is a senior editor at Sierra. He has worked on the magazine since Ronald Reagan’s second term. For inspiration, he turns to cartoonist R. Crumb’s Mr. Natural, who famously noted: “Twas ever thus.”

April 23, 2014

Trees, you guys, trees are awesome. Earth Day may get a lot of press because it’s the “sexy” environmental holiday, but Arbor Day isn’t just for gardening grandmothers. Like bears, trees can lie dormant for most of the winter, but unlike bears, they won’t want to eat you when they wake up. Just three days after Earth Day, Arbor Day honors our lanky limbed friends who don’t shrivel and die at the first nip of frost.

Trees have substantial societal and monetary value. Planting a tree near your home or office can increase your property value, reduce your energy bill, strain local storm water and cache clean groundwater, suck carbon from the atmosphere and improve your air quality. Quantify the benefits of future trees or ones you already have with this benefits calculator. What would Earth Day be without the trees?

Now that you’re sold on planting a tree, how do you choose? Generally, the EPA suggests avoiding trees that are “hard to establish,” “susceptible to disease” and/or “need frequent attention.” When in doubt Master Arborist, Josh Morin recommends, “Go native and diversify.” Native species will be better adapted to the climate and require less maintenance and water. It’s also important to plant a wide variety of trees to avoid contagion among monocultures. To all of you sharpening your earth-moving tools, here’s a list of trees to plant that may do well in your region.

Pacific Northwest:

Pink Dogwood (Cornus florida ‘Rubra’): This tree loves sinking its roots into moist earth. It will stand out amongst the evergreens in your backyard with its brilliant pink flowers. Year-round fruit production makes this tree a popular karaoke bar for songbirds.

Rocky Mountains:

Concolor Fir (Abies concolor): Also known as the “White Fir” this is beautiful evergreen’s silvery needles and whitish bark make it the ideal holiday tree. It’s also drought resistant and native to the western slope of the Rockies. Forget about the hassle of permits and postholing in your National Forest and grow your Christmas tree in the backyard!

Southwest:

Thornless Honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos inermis): This drought-resistant tree produces delicious smelling flowers, can tolerate all types of soil and loves basking in the sun. Bees can also feast on flowering honeylocusts, so if your bee-farm hasn’t quite taken off, planting one of these will be like building an In-N-Out Burger in your yard.

Midwest:

Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica): The ash is a tough, fast-growing tree that can withstand just about any climate the Midwest dishes out. However, it’s currently suffering from an outbreak of emerald ash borers and ash trees are dropping like leaves in October. Be a part of the solution and plant ash in your community!

Northeast:

Red Maple (Acer rubrum): Rhode Island has already claimed this beauty as its state tree, but that doesn’t mean the rest of you can’t enjoy the year-round color show. It will flourish in humid Northeastern summers and offer bright pops of red during long winter months.

Southeast:

American Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua): You could be sipping sweet-tea underneath your sweetgum in a few summers if you plant this beautiful shade tree. The sweetgum turns striking shades of red and yellow in the fall and is very popular among finches, doves, sparrows and turkeys.

Before you plant, it’s a good idea to call a certified arborist in your area and get all the information you need regarding placement, maintenance and species. They’re like a veterinarian for your tree, on call and immensely knowledgeable about your pet.

If you belong to the yardless masses, worry not. You too can get involved in Arbor Day. Engage in a little “Urban Forestry,” recommends Rick Tagtow, Executive Director of the Midwestern International Society of Arborists (ISA). Schools, public parks, golf courses and streets all benefit from tree-planting. Contact local community groups like Rotary clubs, 4H, or the Parks Department to join in a team effort. What better way to channel your cabin fever than fervent digging and shoveling? It’s also a great way to learn about your local ecosystem and get outside with friends and family. New members of the Arbor Day Foundation can receive 10 free trees or choose to have 10 trees planted in our National Forests.

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